


even your name (is a pale ghost)

by donnamosss



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, clarke and lexa r in love and im still fucked up about it, when will our long national nightmare end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnamosss/pseuds/donnamosss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>no one knows. </p>
<p>clarke’s world is shattered, shattering still, the reverberations from a lone gunshot still echoing in every corner of her mind, of her heart, of her life, and no one, not a single living person, knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	even your name (is a pale ghost)

**Author's Note:**

> no offense but when am i gonna be Over It ? i'm waiting
> 
> u all can blame kelsie @sapphicclarke for telling me to write this

_i want you and you are not here. i pause_   
_in this garden, breathing the color thought is_   
_before language into still air. even your name_   
_is a pale ghost and, though i exhale it again_   
_and again, it will not stay with me._

_\--_ carol ann duffy, from “miles away”

 

 

no one knows.

 

clarke’s world is shattered, shattering still, the reverberations from a lone gunshot still echoing in every corner of her mind, of her heart, of her life, and no one, not a single living person, knows.

 

clarke loved lexa (aden, small sandy-haired aden, lexa’s favorite, asked the question and clarke could give him only a slight nod as an answer but it was a yes, it was enough, and aden _knew_ but ontari cut off his head, let his black blood pool at her feet with the blood of all the others, all of lexa’s nightbloods) and no one knows.

 

it is difficult to think of lexa in past tense because she was always so _alive_ —commanding armies with her hand on the hilt of her sword, staring intently at clarke with those green green eyes of hers, kissing clarke impossibly softly and gently in the middle of a war, sweeping into rooms with her black cloak billowing behind her, simultaneously the warrior who soundly defeated roan in one-on-one combat and the girl with trembling tentative hands and watery eyes who kissed clarke. clarke loves lexa. clarke loved lexa.

 

no one knows and clarke can’t let them. there is work to be done (and isn’t there always work to be done? blood to be shed? wars to be fought? there is no room for gentleness in this world, no room for two girls who love each other with a quiet intensity, who look into one another’s eyes and see a promise of a better future). so she protects the computer chip that holds the closest thing she now has to lexa with her life, tucks it in her jacket pocket right above her heart, hands seeking it out every few minutes to make sure it’s still there (the same way her eyes used to seek lexa out in crowded war camps, in the throne room, in the bustling streets of polis), that she hasn’t completely lost it (lost _her_ ). she can think only of luna, of getting the chip into luna, of stopping alie and making sure the world lexa worked so hard to build (the world she died trying to improve) doesn’t unravel at the seams.

 

when luna says no and every plan she has made crumbles to dust, she feels untethered—lost and confused and _defeated_. she feels the helplessness of black blood under her fingernails and being powerless to stop the flow of more (even though she’s supposed to be able to, damn it, she’s a _healer_ ) all over again.

 

“we have to go back to the drop ship,” bellamy tells her, and she nods her agreement because what else is there to do? everything that mattered is lost.

 

(no one knows, and besides, everyone else is battling their own completely fucked up demons, that’s how it works down here on the ground).

 

she can’t sleep at night because all she can think about is how much she wants to tell lexa about everything that’s happening, about how her mother’s eyes looked so _empty_ when she glimpsed them from the rover, about how she thought raven was going to die before they could get alie out of her, about how she’s still not sure she’s ready to trust bellamy again, about how she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to convince her people that they have to oust pike, even if she manages to defeat alie. everything is piling up, responsibilities and duties pushing down heavy on her ribcage (and yes, sometimes she still sees the mountain and the burned bodies of the people, of the _children_ ) and lexa always made that load feel lighter, would listen to her with a grave expression and serious eyes and offer carefully thought out advice and make clarke feel less alone.

 

when the trees start to look familiar on the way back to the drop ship, when she recognizes a particular rotting branch and a distinctive moss-covered boulder, she tells bellamy to pull the rover over even though they don’t really need a rest quite yet. no one protests much and if they do clarke doesn’t stick around to listen anyway, opening the passenger-side door and sliding out of the truck and into the woods practically before they’ve pulled to a complete stop.

 

she walks a short distance into the trees, remembering when the only monsters she had to worry about were mutant gorillas. when she sees a particular bowed and moss-covered tree she pulls to a stop with a sharp intake of breath. this is it. she runs her fingers over the small box in her pocket, swallows down a sob (she is done crying, she is _done_ ). lexa sat there, on that log, and watched her as she slept. lexa stood right here, her face wiped clean of warpaint, and told her with earnest, young eyes that clarke’s heart showed no sign of weakness. clarke wishes she had kissed lexa right here in this clearing, wishes she had kissed her in tents and on mountains and in the alleyways of polis. now she’ll never get the chance.

 

she shudders again, tries not to think of her fingers ghosting over lexa’s shoulder, first when she tied the sling on her arm not far from here and then when they lay together in lexa’s bed.

 

“i’m sorry,” she breathes to no one, to the forest, to herself, to the memory of the two girls who sat here once. she didn’t quite trust lexa then, didn’t know what to make of the young commander, but she knows lexa trusted _her_ completely, was willing to place her life in clarke’s hands and give herself over completely. they had both hurled themselves off that cliff eventually but lexa had gone first, and had never pressured clarke to follow her (she thinks of lexa’s aborted confession, of _that’s why i l-_ , lexa never wanted to make clarke do anything she wasn’t ready for).

 

lexa is gone, and she loved her and never told her, and no one knows.

**Author's Note:**

> srry this was honestly So Extra i can't believe myself
> 
> catch me on tumblr @sapphiclexas


End file.
